Prologue

It goes without saying, that we should never underestimate the power of our imagination.

My nightmares of a dark figure haunted me relentlessly. Watching me. Always watching me.

How could anyone possibly sleep after what I saw? You couldn't. Though, it wasn't the first time something went bump in the night in Saeville. Not with the crime rate in this city. Nor with the roommate I had, my best friend. A stripper. And one who enjoyed a little extra cash.

Sleeping terrified me, so much so that I was falling behind in my studies. Watching over my shoulder became a muscle memory. I was exhausted. Closing my eyes quickly became my biggest fear, which was weird because I collected dead things for fun. Spiders, insects, and butterflies hung on my wall, others in glass containers. They all watched me in my sleep, but they didn't scare me. Not like my nightmares did.

They always started the same.

First, it was the thick smell of musky cologne mixed with blood, pine, and moisture. A smell that I can never again unsmell. If that were even a thing.

Then there was the spine-splitting chill whenever it appeared. A sensation that I can never again, unfeel. If that were even a thing.

Next was a shattered breath tearing through my skull from one ear to the other. A sound that I can never again unhear. If that were even a thing.

Finally came the haunting sight of a black figure in a mask, something that resembled the Grim Reaper. A sight that I can never again unsee. If that were even a thing.

When the nightmares first started, that stoic figure followed me everywhere. Like a shadow, in a goat-horned mask and a long black cape. It appeared in all the places I had been that day, just out of reach. Almost out of sight. Then it would disappear, and I pondered whether it was real or not.

Every. Single. Night.

My imagination burnt the scene of my nightmares into my brain, making them feel like a realistic memory. My secular deliriums. The figure never killed me; it just watched me. When I had my first nightmare, it was standing on the curb on the other side of the bus that I took home late at night after my shift at the cafe, then it just… disappeared.

My second nightmare, it was standing in the corner of my room while I was studying. My third nightmare, it was sitting at a buffet booth at the local diner when I celebrated my best friend"s birthday.

My dreams quickly became my reality. Every time I shut my eyes, there the caped figure was. But it wasn't there when I opened them. That's how I knew it was just a nightmare. I questioned my sanity each and every day, because how was it that your hairbrush could move from your bathroom to your pillow if you were sleeping? How was it that someone, or something, in a nightmare could actually unlock your window? Even when you had changed the lock time and time again?

But they were just nightmares, figments of my imagination due to exhaustion from school. Stress. They were just dreams, after all.

Or so I thought.

I knew I locked my window, like I always did. I pushed the stick along the edge of the window so that it couldn't open. But like clockwork, the smell of its masculine cologne, moisture, blood, and pine was the first thing that stirred me; I knew it was coming to my nightmare again.

Its presence sent that familiar chill up my spine as it stood at my bedside, the same way it did every night. Tenderly brushing my hair with its excessively long black painted fingers, then with the brush. It clinked against the metal rings on its fingers. Moonlight beamed from the window and casted a glint over its metallic, mouthless skeleton mask. Its thick black cape pooled around its feet, and the sharp goat horns from its mask curled out from the hood. He was big, tall, and gloomy. Lean, muscular, and had a painted torso that glowed under the green amulet dangling around his neck. The stoic figure was a man, and that much became clear over time.

The eye holes of his mask were empty, soulless. Hidden by a thick layer of mesh. He was always quiet, gentle, and tentative. He never spoke to me or hurt me. But his stoic stature was enough to terrify anyone. He appeared content yet somewhat provoked as he trailed his fingers over the delicate areas of my neck, right along the part that you would squeeze if you wanted someone dead. I tried to wake up. I really did because it felt so real. But it was just a dream.

He was like the Grim Reaper I read about in books, but without the long scythe. And he wasn't of deathly bone form. He had flesh. He was human.

I knew this was different from the other nightmares.

Because when I opened my eyes, he was already halfway out of my window. Giving me one final glare before he fled.

The shadow man was real.